Groceryman - Chapter X - Leading Hamady's

Who should be president? That would be decided by the five persons who voted Grandfather's controlling interest and so, ruled the company: Mother, her accountant, the company attorney, Ted and me.

When the meeting was convened, Mother suggested that someone should be brought in from the outside to be president.

Rule. It is better for brothers to bow to a Turk than for one to bow to the other.

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Uncle Jack was present and suggested that an industrial psychologist be selected by our director of personnel to evaluate Ted, me and himself for the presidency.

I replied that we all knew each other and shouldn't leave that decision to a stranger.

The vote was four to one for the psychologist.

Soon, a consultant from a recognized New York firm arrived to conduct interviews with us and seek opinions from others in top management. He spent a half-hour with me, asking generic questions without probing for answers.

When his report was completed, we were reconvened at the attorney's office. The recommendations:

In Jack Hamady the company is fortunate to have the right and best man as C.E.O.;
Ted Hamady has a contribution to make and should grow in the business;
Bob Hamady is a college boy who is out of place in business. As president he would be a disaster for the company.

"The blood would run in the streets if he were president," someone had said.

He should leave and return to college. No one spoke. My God! What a condemnation!

So explicit and insistent. I was stunned. And Mother! She had to wonder: To whom had she entrusted the remaking of Hamady Bros?! Said the company attorney, "I think we had all better go home and let this sink in."

Driving home I was philosophical, and not unhappy. The university was where I wanted to be, after all. And since they were rejecting me, I could continue my studies without feeling like a draft dodger ...

... Still, that a stranger could waltz in, issue his condemnation, and have it accepted as gospel! Was I really the wolf?

Or were they a bunch of sheep?

Doris laughed when she learned, imagining me sitting there unmasked, "like a Norway rat at a sanitation meeting," she said. We began making plans for our return to Ann Arbor.

The following morning I arrived late to my office. The property director was waiting inside. He was wide-eyed with impending news.

"The personnel secretary is a friend and she called me on the sly," he began, dramatically. "'I think you ought to know' is how she put it. That psychologist who evaluated you all? He was no stranger."

He was nodding. And then we both were nodding. They knew each other. Our personnel director and the psychologist he selected knew each other. But that was the sort of thing that only went on in larger corporations, wasn't it?

"Do you think it had Uncle Jack's blessing?" he asked.

"If it is a setup." I replied in my legal voice.

"If it is a setup?" he repeated.

"Uncle Jack?" I began and paused "... Uncle Jack and Dad and Dad's brother and their mothers all slept in the same big bed in the old country. Did you know that? ..."
He was waiting.

"... No, Uncle Jack has no involvement. And that's a fact." "That's a fact," he repeated. "What about our director of personnel? He wasn't in the bed."

I was shaking my head. Let sleeping dogs lie, I thought. For now.

Well, well. I called the company attorney with the news. "That evaluation is tainted," he said. "There will be another one, and this time, the auditors will select."

We may not be moving, I told Doris.

One month passed and then a Dr. Adams arrived to conduct a week of tests and interviews.

Arthur Andersen, the auditors, guaranteed his objectivity. Some weeks later we met for his recommendations.

What we now heard was, "Make Mr. Robert Lee Hamady the only executive vice president as soon as possible... . Schedule him for the Harvard Business School three month resident course for senior executives. ... Shortly after completion Mr. Robert Lee Hamady would be made president."

Uncle Jack reached a hand over and we shook hands. Mother was nodding, seemingly more surprised by this evaluation than the damning one.

"Well," said the company attorney looking around, "now we can all go home."

But less than a month later and before any preparations had been made for Harvard, the company attorney called, saying that Mother and her accountant felt I should be given the title now.

"Mother?"

"Your brother and I vote against it," he said. "How do you vote?"

"Congratulate me," I told him. "I'm the new C.E.O."

The transition was made with little fanfare. I moved into the big office and put my things in the desk drawers and my papers in the credenza behind.

I brought in my espresso pot and hung Doris' abstract expressionist painting. I lit my pipe and leaned back in the leather swivel chair. I was in his chair. And I had only to open the right bottom desk drawer to see the loaves of Syrian bread that I could roll into cylinders and eat as he did.

Sitting there, presiding over supermarkets and shopping centers and a thousand employees, I could feel the power he so loved seeping up through the chair. And I had it all right, not from the title but from Dr. Adam's report.

When he wrote of me, "As a business strategist he can become hard to beat," that was seen to validate all of the changes made to the business. And as proof of the power of "expert" testimonial, even Mother now deferred to me.

"I wanted you to get the credit for what you've done for the company," she said to me. "That's why John and I made you chief executive now instead of after Harvard."

But I wouldn't be CEO for long. I'd seen Grandfather's and Dad's estates and I knew the other major stockholdings were similar.

After paying off debt and estate tax, all they'd have after a half-century of work was a company oversaturated in its market area that was dependent on one corporation, even if that corporation was the world's largest.

Perhaps if I needed the power, or the business had a sustainable competitive edge that would justify expansion ... but we didn't.

The business was being transformed ... to sell it. My objective had been reluctantly accepted within the inner circle but it was emotionally charged.

Like Dad, Uncle Jack was hoping to die in the business. Ted would be cut loose to face the unknown. And for Mother, selling Hamady Bros. was selling the church. Dad's spirit resided within these walls. Unless the sale price was extraordinary, they would never accept it.

Less than a week after moving into Dad's office I pushed my finger into the moving flywheel of my Porsche, and when I examined it the fingertip was gone. Surgery was required.

Why should I have done such a thing? Dr. Kimbrough provided the explanation.

"That was penance for daring to take your father's place. No question. And your atonement may be ongoing ... so be careful."

Some weeks later the personnel director asked to see me. The controller, he said, was stepping out with his secretary. When I put the charge to the controller he denied it.

The personnel director reentered and asked whom I believed.

"I believe you," I told him, "But I don't think you fit in here. I think you're better suited to a large corporation." He slumped back in his chair, staring hard at me.

"Oh, I see" he said with a smirk. "All right. Can we put it that I'm resigning?"

"No because you're not."

The notice was posted and was followed by cheering in the hall. I made no connection. The warehouse manager threw open my door.

"That's the best fucking thing you've ever done. Did you hear that cheering? That son-of-a-bitch was ordering everyone around and threatening them with his connection to Jack."

Then, seeing my unaware expression, "He had his own fiefdom going!"

I had no idea. Too involved with abstractions, I decided. A college boy president.

The 1970s began with a General Motors strike and sales stagnated throughout Eastern Michigan. The Vietnam War dragged on and inflation steepened, as customers could see by the two and three price increases stamped on the canned goods.

A store manager reported overhearing one customer with a full food cart saying that somebody ought to kill those Hamadys. President Nixon ordered a price freeze but labor cost increases had to be absorbed.

Business responded with across the board discounting and gross margins shrank.

The stock markets were gyrating. Rumors flew of grocery chains going under or ceasing operations in Flint and Detroit.

Hamady Bros. had been remade. A new merchandising management had been brought in from outside and a profitsharing plan established.

A consultant was directing team planning and goal setting. After seeing the company's financial history he informed me that Grandfather had the overview and was the general while Dad was the good, loyal lieutenant.

That soured me. He was belittling the prominent man in town who had visited my elementary school to address us about traffic safety, making me so proud ... and belittling the father who could beat up the fathers of all the boys I didn't beat.

Maybe I'd made him up, refigured him from his best parts, discarding the others, and created the father I needed to sustain me until I grew up. But he had sustained me. And I didn't want to hear anyone putting him down.

I now embarked on selling the family business. In New York two investment bankers tried and failed to sell the property. Sale of the grocery company was agreed upon with a food wholesaler in Chicago but its stock price dropped precipitously, scotching the deal.

A Detroit food chain was interested on condition the rents and lease terms were altered: no deal. A merger with Borman Foods out of Detroit that owned our largest tenant appeared likely but their stock value was dropping and eventually fell eighty percent.

Two years passed and I was shaking my head. I feel like a hapless whore, I told Doris.

Then in early 1973 our new attorney in Detroit said he had two investors from Pittsburgh who wanted to inspect the property. This they did, posing as insurance investigators.

We then met at the attorney's office at 5:00pm. The prospective purchasers had charts of our properties laid out with columns for leaks, cracks, aging, etc. The columns that intrigued me were marked:

Termite soldiers

Dead reproductives

Nymphs

Eggs

Tunnels

Each nymph and tunnel had to be discussed and a reduction to the asking price negotiated. At 3:00 a.m. a recess was called.

"These guys are the Pittsburgh Stealers," said our property director. "If they find a termite queen we're going to owe them money."

"Stick with these guys," the attorney said. "They're deal makers."

We did, and at 6:00 a.m. the property was sold.

I went home to sleep and didn't arrive at the office until mid-afternoon. No announcement of the sale had been made but the word was out.

"Are you taking calls?" my secretary asked.

I took the phone.

"I own some shares of Hamadys," a voice said. "It was quoted at eight dollars a share last I looked and I just heard you sold the property for twenty-one dollars a share. Is that right? And we still own the grocery business? Can you explain it to me?"

I was reflecting as he spoke. No one pulls a rabbit from a hat unless the rabbit is in the hat. Grandfather didn't see that what he'd built was a property company. Dad, too.

They were grocerymen. I had fantasized that when this moment came--because Grandfather's prophecy now was self-made man hot air--my reaction would be exhilaration, or I'd simply take up my pipe and luxuriate. Instead, I was RELIEVED. Like the boy who didn't know his father drank until he saw him sober, only now with the burden lifted did I feel what was at stake.

There remained the grocery company. It hummed efficiently, unaware what was being plotted, because it had to be disposed of or distributed within a year to avoid a double tax. A fifty thousand dollar finder's fee was discretely offered to whoever finds the buyer.

That summer Doris and I moved to Washington, D.C. where several cousins had preceded us but I was remaining C.E.O. until the final liquidation.

In October, Uncle Jack was notified of an interested investor, but one who might be connected to the mafia. The company lawyer was asked to investigate. When he advised there was no connection I invited the man to see the company. He did and was impressed. An agreement was quickly drawn up.

Now with sale imminent, Mother wavered.

"How can you sell the business now that you have it the way you want it?" she exclaimed and held out a letter. "Look what John has to say about it."

The letter was from her accountant.

"Just a memo to cheer you up a bit. I realize that the sale of the real estate is a trying experience for you; especially when the sale of the food markets is also just around the corner... .

"The sale of the real estate is a good thing for you financially and more so in that your son Bob really engineered the deal... . Bob is not deserting the grocery stores. Operations under Ray and his staff are as good if not better than any comparable operation in the country... ."

"But Mother, I'm not interested in staying in the business."

"What are you going to be without it?" she asked. "Once its gone, ..."

She trailed off and there was grief in her eyes that was giving way to tears. I put my arms around her and for me, too, there were tears. Love is care, I heard Dad saying: Now you know ... Not so, I told myself. It's only a business. Bricks and mortar. But the tears knew the truth and ran freely down my cheeks.

On the day of the signing, first thing, I reminded myself that selling was in the best interests of the stockholders. At the steps up to the lawyer's office I hesitated just long enough to turn off my receptors lest I hear cries of protest from the grave. Then I went in and signed away the business.

Afterwards, walking out with the property director, he asked how it felt to give away the mosque. I'm cold blooded, I told him. But that was a half-truth. The business hadn't vanished.

It would live on as Hamady Bros. How important that now seemed.

Still, there had been something strange at the signing: a tough-looking round faced bald man in padded shoulders and pointed toe shoes. He looked like he'd wandered off the set of On the Waterfront.

"A bodyguard, do you think?" I asked.

"Bodyguards don't sign the documents," he replied. That's right, he did. Did he represent mob money and the purchaser was a front man? ... I smiled, imagining the first ad.

"Hamady Bros. passes on its skimming savings to you."

The levity didn't last. Who were those guys?

I was soon driving Mother's car back to Mother. Once in her driveway I angled the car to the side out of sight and sat. It was Dad. His spirit was afoot. If he could return... . I could hear him. "DAMN YOU for selling the business. And damn me for ever wanting you in it." And then if he caught sight of the new owners?! He'd charge me, as he'd done in the past... .

"Not this time, Dad," I said out loud, as if warning him that now he could expect a brawl.

Because I didn't regret the sale. Was that all he cared about: the business? The hell with it! Why should a business endure as the shrine and his brother, who was sacrificed for it, be buried somewhere and forgotten? Uncle Louie had my son as his namesake, his legacy.

Dad would just have to make do now with Ted and me. If that left him unsatisfied ... then to hell with him, too.

As my ire subsided I was again feeling sorry for Dad. I supposed I always would. But now I had to bridge the breach between us in my mind. I had to give his spirit repose in some way. But how? ...

Grandfather could do it. Dad would listen to him. Yes, and he had something that trumps the business. So, ...

If Grandfather said to him, "When I came here in 1908, poor and couldn't speak English, the grocery business opened its arms to me, just as it did to every immigrant--Arabs and Jews, Chinese and Italians-- because with one month's rent and two cartons of Kelloggs Corn Flakes I could be a grocery man.

And if I didn't speak the language I could introduce self serve... .

"But when I came back here with you and Louie it wasn't the grocery business I kissed. Remember? Hamady Bros.--any grocery business--is merely the most faithful representative of this country.

"Before getting into that taxi in New York, I got down and kissed the ground. This ground. That's our business, Robert. That's what you and I helped to make, and what in turn made us... .